In 2019, the latest pre-pandemic revelation, Italians declared little trust in public transport services: the consequence is a high use of private transport to go to places of work or study
Despite the many calls for sustainable mobility, Italians continue to (clearly) prefer the use of private vehicles rather than using the public transport service. The reason? A high rate of dissatisfaction with the service, due to the widespread connection difficulties in many areas of Italy. In fact, according to the Istat 2023 report, which reports 2019 data, the goal set for 2030 of offering all citizens sustainable and safe public transport systems, at the moment, seems difficult to achieve. Let’s now find out in detail what Italians think of the public transport service and which are the most and least virtuous regions of the Belpaese in this situation.
dissatisfied
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According to what was revealed by Istat for the year 2019, there are more or less a third of the families dissatisfied with the public transport service, precisely the 33.5%, an increase compared to 29.5% in 2010. A dissatisfaction due to the poor transport connections that characterize various Italian areas. It is no coincidence that 74.2% of people use private transport to go to work, while the percentage of students who use public transport to go to places of study is still low: 28.5%.
How many people use public transport in Italy?
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According to the 2020 report “Displacements on the territory before Covid-19”, also by Istat, in 2019 there were 13 million people who used a bus, trolleybus or tram at least once, while they three million those who used public transport every day, the same number of those who used the service more than once a week. Among the people who used them every day, more than one million were from the North-West, 500,000 from the North-East, 750,000 from the Centre, 430,000 from the South and 230,000 from the islands (these are indicative figures). As for those who used the public transport system a few times a week: 900,000 were in the North-West, 540,000 in the North-East, 700,000 in the Centre, 540,000 in the South and 230,000 in the islands. Also in this case these are indicative quantities.
differences by region
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The three regions where the most people use the public system every day or a few times a week areas expected, even the most populous: Lombardy (600,000 every day, over a million more than once a week), Lazio (500,000 and over 900,000) and Campania (200,000 and over 500,000). “Wooden medal” for Piedmont (over 200,000 and almost 500,000) which does better than Emilia-Romagna and Veneto, despite the greater number of inhabitants present in the latter two regions. Data from the three smallest regions of the country, i.e. Valle d’Aosta, Molise and Basilicata in order, are not available. It is not surprising, therefore, that the lowest number of people using the public transport service is recorded in Umbria, which is the smallest region in the “ranking”.
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